#faewrit

(Eret takes his hand, having to reach up to keep his arm at the right level while Foolish’s hangs down. “You’re too tall,” they grumble. They’re hardly trying to be quiet on purpose, but they feel drowned out even when the music and dancing is far away from where they stand on the fringes of the town square.

“You’re the one still growing,” Foolish retaliates. “But I don’t think it matters, does it?”

“I’m a reasonable height for my age. You’re just a giant. Why do they make you guys so big anyway?”

Foolish just shrugs.

They roll their eyes, though they know Foolish can’t see it through their sheer blindfold. “Well we’re supposed to hold hands like this.” They shake the hand still clasped to Foolish’s. “And hold each other’s shoulders with the other.” They reach up, but can only get to Foolish’s bicep. It’s so not fair.

“I can just hold both your hands,” he suggests, doing exactly that.

“But that’s not how you’re supposed to do it.”

“Well, there’s not much else we can do here.” Foolish tilts his head at them and a sly grin creeps across his face. “What is it mortals tell their children? You need to drink milk or you won’t grow tall?”

“I’m not a child—!” Eret cuts off as their voice jumps an octave.

“Oh, my bad!” Foolish clears his throat dramatically. “Please, O Dark Lord of Chaos and Destruction and Squeaky Voices, I beg of you to forgive this humble totem for speaking out of—OW!”

Eret kicks Foolish’s shin a second time for good measure before grumbling “I never should have taught you sarcasm.”

“You didn’t teach me jack shit, you little brat!” Foolish laughs and grabs both their hands again, firmer this time, but they could yank away if they really wanted to. “Come on, do you wanna dance or not?”

Eret doesn’t pout. They don’t. “…Yes.”)

~

(Eret takes his hand, narrowly avoiding slipping the last rung of the ladder. Foolish hauls him up the rest of the way to the safety of the roof.

“You good?” Foolish asks as Eret brushes bits of dirt off his pant leg.

“Fine. My shoes just don’t have as much grip as I thought.”

“Aha! I told you they’d be a pain! See where cute shoes get you?”

“Well usually, I wouldn’t be scaling buildings in them. This was your idea.”

“And you should have taken your shoes off for it.”

Eret doesn’t bother responding to him, just taps his sunglasses to vanish them into his inventory so he can look up at the stars properly. It’s been a while since he’s really gotten to look up and appreciate the night sky, what with the persistent clouds and on-and-off rain the past few months. The anxiety of someone seeing his eyes is still there, it always is, but the nighttime and whole roof thing mitigates it somewhat.

Eret doesn’t have the same luxury Foolish does; even the most secluded of backwater villages know exactly what their blank eyes mean, so he’s not safe to take off his sunglasses except when they’re completely alone like this. Meanwhile, only a handful of people have recognized Foolish as a totem while they’ve been traveling, with far less extreme reactions. No one in this town seems to have any knowledge of totems, so they check off his solid red eyes as divine or some other flavor of magic and respectfully keep their distance. 

“Oh hey, they’re playing music now!” Foolish exclaims. The sounds from the tavern below are muted, carried through windows left open to savor the pleasant weather before the rain inevitably comes back, but still loud enough to hear the melody over the rowdy patrons.

“Damn. Just as we left, too.”

“Do you wanna go back down?”

“Nah. More room up here.” Eret smiles and offers his hand. “May I?”

Foolish grins back, taking his hand and sliding into the lead position. “You absolutely may.”)

~

(Eret takes his hand, tugging him down to sit with her on the grass, still damp from the morning dew. The sunrise has long passed, but they wouldn’t have been able to see it through the trees regardless. Eret thinks this is more beautiful anyway, watching the light filter through the leaves and fog in thick stripes for hours instead of the split-second sunrise.

“We’re not going back, are we,” Foolish sighs.

“No.” People don’t take kindly when they catch on to what Eret is. This city had been no different. Thankfully, between their two inventories, they managed to save the most important of their belongings when they fled the proverbial torches and pitchforks.

Though, she’s sure they’ll burn their house down at some point even though they’re long gone. The way Eret affects her surroundings after living in a space long enough, it will remain “haunted” for quite some time.

Foolish hums and drops his head on Eret’s shoulder. “How long till you think they forget about us?”

“Depends. I think all first-hand witnesses will have to be dead, at least.” A beetle crawls over her shoe. She carefully picks it up and watches it skitter over her fingers. “But I don’t think I want to come back even after that.”

She drops the beetle on Foolish’s face, who gives her an exasperated look before flicking it back into the grass. “That doesn’t work on me anymore.”

“Your face looked lonely.”

“Your face looks stupid.”

“Ouch. My pride. How will I ever recover,” Eret says in the most monotone and unimpressed voice she can muster. “Scoot.” She nudges him off of her and lays down. The grass is long enough to brush her cheeks. Foolish’s familiar weight settles on her again as he lays down across her stomach.

Eret supposes that they’ll be going back to their ramshackle base. It’s been, what, six or seven years? It’ll be a bitch to clean up. No doubt there’s bugs everywhere. But once again she’s glad they have a place to go back to when needed, no matter how dingy. They definitely need the time alone to recuperate after... all that.

Maybe they should just leave it behind altogether. At least for a little while.

“We should build a house.”

“We’ve got a house,” Foolish points out. “Kind of.”

“A real house. I’m tired of living in cities and traveling.” Eret sweeps her hand out, gesturing to the still-waking-up forest. “Someplace like this. Far enough away that people won’t notice things are too off about us. Close enough to visit, though. Get supplies and things.”

The gears turn in his head so loudly that Eret can practically hear them. “We could probably build something pretty big if it’s out here…”

She knows what he’s asking. It’s kind of funny that even after all this time he still stumbles and has trouble with wanting things, and consequently asking for what he wants in a straightforward way. But all in all, the fact that he’s capable of wanting things at all shows incredible progress. When Eret first met him, he couldn’t even conceptualize the idea of it. Totems aren’t usually capable of wanting, after all.

And she knows all too clearly that on top of that, Foolish probably feels embarrassed about wanting this particular thing.

“It can be kind of like a temple,” she offers, because she knows he won’t say it. “It would just be for us, after all. It can look however we want.”

She can’t see Foolish, but she can hear his most certainly sheepish smile in his words. “Not much of a temple without worshipers.”

“You’ll get them soon. I know you will.”

His voice grows softer, almost a whisper. “Maybe you will too.”)

~

(Eret takes his hand, stepping through the door of their brand-new, permanent home.)

~

(Eret takes his hand, closing their eyes as instructed. Foolish fiddles with slipping something cold over their hand and settling it on their wrist.

“Okay, you can open them.”

They do so. The cold something is a gold bracelet—a simple but elegant solid band that only breaks to wrap around little smooth gems that Eret thinks might be quartz, but they don’t know enough about crystals to really tell.

“Happy hundred and ninety-si—ssseeeventh birthday?” Foolish cringes.

“Ninety fourth,” they correct him with a chuckle, but their eyes are glued to the shimmering gold on their wrist. “This is gorgeous.”

“You think so?”

“I love it. Where did you get this?”

Eret looks up to see Foolish’s beaming smile. “I made it!”

“You made this? When—how?”

“You remember Jenith? The guy in town who—"

“The one with the cats, yes.”

“Yeah! So, he does jewelry and stuff, and I asked if he could teach me!”

Eret listens intently while Foolish rambles about how, exactly, he made the bracelet—techniques and materials and tools and what parts he found easy or difficult. They don’t entirely follow everything Foolish says, but they’re happy to nod along. Eret just keeps staring at the bracelet.

They aren’t sure why they’re so surprised. It’s not like Foolish has never made anything before, but this feels different than building their home. It’s not that their home isn’t beautiful, but Foolish making something beautiful simply for the sake of being beautiful… and all for them—they don't know how to put that into proper words. Foolish was never built to create. Eret is so proud of him.)

~

(Eret takes his hand, assuming the lead position while Foolish falls into step next to her in time with the rhythm.)

~

(Eret takes his hand, prying it away from his face. “You’re going to smudge your eyeliner if you keep doing that.”

“It feels weird,” Foolish complains. “How do you wear this all the time?”

Eret dabs her brush in the bowl again and continues applying the lapis-blue paste onto Foolish’s eyelids. “You get used to the feeling. It becomes background noise, just like clothes.”

“Sounds fake.”

“I promise. Besides, this is definitely worth it, yes?” Eret picks up the mirror and faces it towards him.

Foolish examines himself. “Oh, huh. I look great, actually.”)

~

(Eret takes his hand, then yelps as Foolish yanks him to his feet.

“Come on, you can’t mope about it forever!” Foolish chides him.

“I’m not moping.”

“Sure you are. Moping and pouty. Just like when you were a little kid.”

“Foolish—”

“O Dark Lord of Pouty Faces—”

Eret snorts and shoves his face away. “Foolish—”

Foolish is relentless, ruffling Eret’s hair and knocking his sunglasses off. “Dark Lord of Overthinking and Being Dumb—!”

Eret finally gets the upper hand, reaching around his shoulders and grabbing Foolish’s collar from behind to yank his shirt up and over his head, then shoving him to the floor.

Eret huffs and dusts off his hands. “Anything else?”

“Dark Lord of Kicking My Ass. Ow.”

Eret gives a petty little hmph! in triumph.

...Right before Foolish sweeps his leg and lays Eret flat out on the floor with him.)

~

(Eret takes his hand, knuckles white with how hard he’s gripping Foolish’s metallic skin. “How bad is it?”

“Not that deep.” He squeezes Eret’s hand back. His voice is as steady as ever. “The bleeding has already pretty much stopped.”

Eret sucks in a sharp breath as Foolish prods the wound on his side. “Hurts like a bitch for it to be not that deep,” he groans.

“We’ve got a lot of regen. Hopefully it’ll heal up pretty quick after this.” Foolish slips his hand out of Eret’s vice grip so he can fetch said regen to pour on the new bandages.)

~

(Eret takes his hand, letting Foolish spin her into a low dip. Then, he promptly lets go so she falls ass first on the sand. She throws a fistful of said sand in his face when he laughs at her, though she can’t help but laugh too.)

~

(Eret takes his hand, and she rests her head against his chest as they begin to sway to the music.)

~

(Eret takes his hand, making sure to)

~

(Eret takes his hand, although he)

~

(Eret takes his hand, and)

~

(Eret takes his hand,)

`

(Eret takes his hand,)

~

(Eret takes his hand,)

and the disjointed memories leave as quickly as they came, making their heart clench and their lungs stutter.

“Eret?”

They remember how to breathe a moment later than they would like, feeling lightheaded trying to catch their breath. “Sorry, sorry. I’m fine. Just another—more memories, rather.”

“Oookay, let’s get you out of here before you fall over.” Foolish pulls them aside, his grip on their arm strong and ready to support them if they stumble. Eret doesn’t stumble (at least they’re mostly sure they don’t), but the reassuring touch is always welcome.

He leads them a short while down the hall and into a servant’s passage that leads to an office. Eret would say it’s overkill, but their reactions to old memories aren’t always the most pleasant. They wave him off when he tries to help them sit down on a chair, but he still hovers close by.

“How are you doing? Gonna pass out?”

“We…” Eret shakes their head, trying to clear their thoughts. “We’ve danced together quite a bit, haven’t we.”

“Yep. We’ve talked about it before,” he reminds them.

“We learned together,” they murmur distantly.

Foolish snaps his fingers in their face. “Okay, okay, roll it back to the present. Do you feel like you’re gonna pass out?” He asks again.

Eret huffs a laugh. “No.”

“Okay. Dizzy or anything?”

“I think I’m alright now.”

“Nice.” Foolish nods, finally satisfied. “Okay now we can download. You wanna talk about it? Questions?”

Eret has to think about it a moment. It was a lot, it’s definitely going to take a while to process, but nothing jumps out at them that they can’t figure out the context for on their own. “Probably later.”

“Alright, later.” Foolish smiles, his skin wrinkling at the edges of his eyes. They never did that before, back when he really was solid gold and didn’t only look it.

The sound of a drum starting up all the way back in the banquet hall makes both of them startle. “Hm. This office really ought to be better soundproofed.” Eret turns to Foolish, ready to ask him his opinion on how to do so, but finds him squinting at the door like it has the secrets to the universe. “Foolish?”

He turns to them with that bright, toothy grin that they’ll never get tired of. “Do you still want that dance?”

They smile. “Of course.”

Eret takes his hand,